ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft revision to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan. The plan guides Mexican wolf recovery efforts by the bureau and its partners, with the ultimate goal of removing this wolf subspecies from Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections and returning management to the appropriate states and tribes. The Service is now seeking public input and peer review on the draft revised plan through a public comment period and series of public meetings. The comment period will remain open through August 29, 2017.

Conaway Praises EPA Repeal of WOTUS, Calls for Continued Work to Protect Farmers and Ranchers

“WOTUS has never been about clean water, it was about feeding the Obama EPA’s insatiable appetite for power. Well that ends now.”

Washington, D.C. – House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (TX-11) praised the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement today it is repealing the Obama administration’s waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule and called on other agencies to revise and re-evaluate their enforcement of this onerous provision. Following the EPA’s announcement, Chairman Conawaymade the below remarks:

On June 22, 2017, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will delist the Yellowstone population of the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis). According to the Service, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Distinct Population Segment (Yellowstone DPS) of the grizzly bear has recovered to the point that federal protections are no longer necessary and overall management of the species can be returned to the states and tribes.

The Yellowstone DPS consists of grizzlies in portions of northwestern Wyoming, southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho. The Service estimates that the population has rebounded from as few as 136 bears in 1975 to approximately 700 today. The Yellowstone DPS now occupies more than 22,500 square miles, more than double its range from the mid-1970s.